Religious Discrimination: What Do You Think?
Where do we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable discrimination on the grounds of religion?
Clearly there is a line. Even if you think there should never be any religious discrimination, or that there always should be, that’s still making a choice, and drawing a line.
I’m thinking that it’s ok to discriminate religiously when employing (or whatever) a minister of religion if you are yourself a religious organisation.
I also think that some types of religious discrimination are ok when employing (or whatever) a minister of religion if you are not a religious organisation e.g. a hospital, prison or armed force. Not nearly as many though, and more based on factors caused by that religion, for example I’m guessing the Army may not want to employ a Quaker chaplain, since Quakers are typically non-violent. One of the abiding qualities of a chaplain in a non-religious organisation should be being able to provide support for everybody in the organisation regardless of religious belief - there may be some faiths or denominations for whom that is not possible.
I think it may be ok to discriminate on the grounds of religion in a religiously based organisation, like a Catholic school, or an Islamic charity. But I think this discrimination should be limited only to the places that it is strictly relevant, being a teacher of religious studies - probably, being a secretary - not so much. This is less discrimination than is currently normally allowed. Most religiously based organisations strongly prefer their employees to share the religious beliefs of the organisation, but I don’t think that’s good unless the position really demands religious belief and couldn’t be done by a non-believer. I imagine that my criteria for religion being necessary are stricter than many religious people.
I think it’s fundamentally not ok to discriminate on the grounds of religion in a non-religiously based organisation. The grey area here is when people’s religious beliefs mean that they cannot perform some of the requirements of the job in question. An evangelical Christian should be able to take up employment at an evolutionary biology lab. Any belief in young earth creationism should not affect your ability to mop floors, it may not even affect your ability to carry out research (although I might question your choices). I think that in all cases, it isn’t what you think but what you do that should be discriminated on.
Naturally non-religion should no more be discriminated against than religion. I see no reason why an atheist couldn’t be a prison chaplain, a Catholic school teacher, or an accountant, just as I see no reason why a Buddhist, Baptist, Muslim, Mormon or Sikh can’t.
What do you think?
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Is Dave Ramsey Ethical?
Some of you know that one of my other hobbies is personal finance. Recently a group of my personal finance blogging friends and I did a series on American personal finance guru Dave Ramsey.
Being British, Dave Ramsey isn’t exactly well known to me. I’ve only ever encountered him on the interweb, where some of my good friends are followers of Dave Ramsey’s baby steps for getting out of debt. This method is a good (if not mathematically optimal) method for getting out of debt, and I have no problems with it.
In addition to his website, and books, Ramsey also promotes his own courses - The Financial Peace University, and you can train to be a Dave Ramsey financial counselor and help other people get out of debt.
Well, you can train to be a Dave Ramsey counsellor only if you’re an Evangelical Christian.
I’m not up on American law, but I’m pretty certain it’s perfectly legal for Ramsey to discriminate on the grounds of religion.
I don’t think it’s right though. And I’m not the only one - Ana who blogs at Debt-FREE revolution is a big Dave Ramsey fan, and she’s not a Christian at all. She wrote recently giving her opinions on the restrictions Ramsey imposes.
There is an argument that Ramsey bases his financial teachings on the Bible. However, other people have reviewed Dave Ramsey’s program and concluded that - somewhat unsurprisingly - you don’t have to be a Christian to follow it.
Ok, so you mostly aren’t that interested in personal finance, but it does illustrate a point - to what extent should religious discrimination be allowed by businesses?
Is it discriminatory to say that religiously motivated organisations can’t discriminate on religious grounds? (I’ll leave that train of thought there before I get tied up in a tongue twister.)
Where religious discrimination is in place, and you think they should be allowed to do as they please (but don’t actually approve) do you avoid promoting them?
On balance, my position is that religious discrimination in unrelated businesses (like personal finance) is usually wrong, and I shouldn’t support it, but I’m ambivalent as to whether it should be made illegal. If public money is involved then I’m more inclined to think it should be illegal.
I know all the commentators on the religious atheist have great things to say, so let me know what you think in the comments.
Image by jasoon
Popularity: 100% [?]
Practical Ethics: Representing Others
Shortly, I’m going to a national conference as a representative of a local organisation. Part of the programme of the conference includes voting on various motions. Typically these are things like “This organisation thinks that war is bad”. This time one of the motions concerns the relative standing of civil partnerships compared to civil marriages.
Pretty much, when I saw the motion, I assumed that everyone would be in favour of equalising the standings between same sex and different sex partnerships. I think it’s the only moral and ethical position to take and completely fail to see any legitimate reason why people would feel differently.
So far, I’ve had two responses from people on the committee that runs the local organisation. The first was ambivalent and said that if they were going they would abstain. The second was opposed, and stated that marriage and civil partnerships are fundamentally different. (By the way, none of these people are a members of a conservative religion.)
Originally, when I wrote this post, I was going to pose it as an ethical dilemma - should I be representing the local organisation’s views, or should I follow my own conscience. Trouble is, even if everyone else in the committee opposes the motion, there’s no way that I can vote against it. That would be just wrong. I feel the same way about abstaining.
I’m going to talk to some friendly people on the committee, and see what they say. I’m normally a big fan of consensus politics, but not when it violates my principles.
What would you do?
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